Pep Guardiola entered the post-match press conference visibly perturbed. Someone with almost a thousand games as a manager/head coach, even he didn’t have any explanations for this one.
In a 15-minute collapse last night, Guardiola’s Manchester City side conceded three goals to draw a game with Dutch visitors Feyenoord they had been leading 3-0 after 74 minutes. It was, according to Opta, the first time in Champions League history a team had led by such a margin so late in a match and not won it.
When it rains, it pours. Because by City’s standards, the past 27 days constitute a crisis.
On October 30, their 14-match unbeaten start to the season ended with a 2-1 Carabao Cup defeat away to Tottenham Hotspur. The thinnest silver lining is that this draw with Feyenoord broke a five-game losing streak.
After conceding only 10 goals in their first 13 games this season, City have shipped 17 in the past six, with their opponents scoring at least twice each match. Their previous run of allowing at least two in as many consecutive fixtures? In April and May 1963, when they ended up getting relegated from the top tier of English football.
Feyenoord’s goals encapsulated City’s defensive problems, as did the fact they came in such quick succession: Guardiola’s side conceded twice in seven minutes in Saturday’s 4-0 defeat against Tottenham, two in five minutes in losing 2-1 away to Brighton & Hove Albion in their previous league game and Sporting CP hit them with a three-minute double to win 4-1 in Lisbon last time out in the Champions League. This happening both at home and in Europe, where City normally cruise, is even worse.
The first was an error from Josko Gvardiol after a Feyenoord long ball — which City had defended routinely.
Their back four are on the halfway line here, as they had been all game, with Guardiola hyper-focused on them and appealing for offside.
Feyenoord left-back David Hancko hits a ball over the City defence, which substitute Santiago Gimenez chases. Eventual goalscorer Anis Hadj-Moussa is on the visitors’ right wing (highlighted with the black dot).
Manuel Akanji, running towards his own goal, heads the ball up, and Nathan Ake nods it to Gvardiol. But the latter’s hooked pass intended for Ederson is too high and short. Moussa races onto it, rounds the goalkeeper, and squeezes a shot in on the angle.
Add that to City’s four errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season, the fourth-highest in the division — behind Ipswich Town, Brighton (both five) and Southampton (eight). Their six such errors in 19 games already in 2024-25 is more than City made in all 55 matches in the previous campaign (five).
“He’s so young, he will learn,” said Guardiola on Gvardiol, who has been a key contributor for City in the attacking third but, at the other end of the pitch, is struggling in duels and defending his back post. That showed for Feyenoord’s second goal.
It is the Croatian’s short pass to substitute James McAtee that leads to the Rotterdam side regaining possession.
After neat interplay on the edge of the box, Feyenoord find winger Igor Paixao. Hancko overlaps him.
City defend both sides of the ensuing cross poorly. Right-back Rico Lewis and winger Bernardo Silva both hesitate — neither gets out to the crosser or really tracks the runner, leaving Paixao with time and space.
Gvardiol drops too early, playing all three Feyenoord forwards onside, and left-winger Matheus Nunes doesn’t help him out as he fails to pick up the back-post run. Gvardiol ends up in a one-v-three situation.
While Gvardiol stops his man from reaching the cross, the other two combine to score. The deepest Feyenoord player, substitute Jordan Lotomba, hits a first-time ball low for Gimenez to tap in — 3-2.
City have had defensive issues with the wide man opposite the ball all season. Gvardiol defended Antoine Semenyo poorly for Bournemouth’s opener in the 2-1 defeat at the start of this month; Kyle Walker had problems for Brentford’s goal at the Etihad Stadium in September; Lewis was consistently overloaded at the back post in Brighton. Individuals have underperformed in moments but, structurally, City have flaws.
The continued absence of Ruben Dias because of a calf injury that’s kept him out of action for a month now, and their lack of an adequate replacement, shows here.
Since he joined from Lisbon’s Benfica in September 2020, Dias accounts for 20 per cent of City’s Premier League clearances. Across all competitions in the past three-and-a-bit seasons, opponents complete 19 per cent of crosses and score once every 70 crosses when the Portugal centre-back starts. It’s a 25 per cent completion rate and a goal every 60 minutes when he doesn’t.
Feyenoord’s equaliser showed two of City’s major issues: they’re pressing aggressively but lacking coordination, and their high line is inconsistent. City are catching Premier League opponents offside eight metres higher this season than in the previous one, but doing so less frequently (1.8 times a game to 2.2).
City pressed well when Feyenoord went short, making 10 final-third regains. They also defended long balls fairly well, winning 75 per cent of aerial duels (their highest in any game this season), but caught their opponents offside only once.
On goal three, Feyenoord went over the top of City’s full-court 4-4-2 press. Gvardiol and Nunes somehow end up challenging for the same ball, and the former’s header goes exactly into the space where the latter should be.
In two passes, Feyenoord work it back out to the right wing, and Gvardiol jumps out to press. The visitors have five players ready to break the last line and City’s defence tries to hold. Paixao times his run in-behind perfectly for Moussa’s pass.
Paixao beats the onrushing Ederson to the ball, heads it past him, then crosses for Hancko, who heads past the covering Lewis into an empty net.
City are so injury-hit that Guardiola has used seven different centre-backs in the 12 Premier League games this season and four different central defensive combinations in their first five Champions League matches.
Yet, in Europe, they’re pressing more aggressively than ever, with a higher line. Their field tilt (the share of total final-third passes a team plays) is 88 per cent in the Champions League, making them the competition’s most territorially-dominant team in the past six seasons.
This is giving opponents space to hit them on counter-attacks or when City press, and it’s particularly brave (bordering on questionable) to be trying that without a settled defence.
Consequently, City are increasingly reliant on Ederson. He’s made the third-most sweeper-keeper actions of any Premier League goalkeeper, and is sweeping at his most frequent rate since 2017-18 (his first season with City).
Relying on individual brilliance at both ends of the pitch, with City more dependent on Erling Haaland for goals than in the past two seasons, means a high ceiling but a lower floor.
If 15 points is the threshold for a top-eight Champions League spot and direct qualification for the round of 16 in March, City need wins from their final three league-phase matches.
But before trips to Turin (Juventus) and Paris (PSG), and a home tie against Club Brugge, they go to Anfield in the Premier League on Sunday — to face a Liverpool side who have won 16 of 18 games this season and are top of the table.
Plenty more for Guardiola to worry about.
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
